


A Harebell Trembling

by waitingtobelit



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Flowers, Fluff, Inspired by Poetry, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-13
Updated: 2013-05-13
Packaged: 2017-12-11 17:23:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/801229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waitingtobelit/pseuds/waitingtobelit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cosette meanders through her garden like a child lost in thought. Eponine is content to watch her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Harebell Trembling

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: Christina Rossetti’s poetry always makes me think of Cosette x Eponine, and so I had to write something based on my favorite poem of hers. Inspiration and title come from “Hope Is Like A Harebell Trembling From Its Birth.”
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with Les Miserables. This was written for recreational purposes only.

 

In their garden, her garden, as dear papa always corrects her, Cosette pulls stories like coin tricks from beneath the delicate petals of blooming flowers. At the age of eighteen, she likes to project the gentle, yet sparking love taken from the well-worn pages of her Austen novels on the varying plant life surrounding her. She imagines the cutting wit of roses as they clash with the keen stubbornness of lilies. She dances barefoot between light and shadow as the occasional cloud obscures the sun on such a tranquil May morning. She spins herself around as though she were a participant at the town dance in which the daisy and the violet fall in love, the tips of her fingers catching on petals and branches like brief touches of hands between recently acquired acquaintances. She laughs as she almost trips over the hem of her lengthy, floral printed skirt that blends in with the roses. With her torn, white peasant blouse, Cosette is as wild as a lark caught up in her own song.

For in her garden, Cosette answers only to her own whims, fanciful beings like unicorns that change direction as often as Cosette runs a hand through her tangled, golden hair littered with branches and leaves. She pulls out a snapped twig of some bush or other before resuming her whirling around like one of the ridiculous Bennet sisters. A butterfly’s wing catches on the edge of her cheek and she bursts into laughter yet again. Her papa would smile to see her in such a state.

The snapping sound of branches crushed beneath feet interrupts the melody of her amusement. Cosette’s hair falls into her face as she pivots to find Eponine staring at her from behind their gate, her fingers wrapped like ivy around the intricate, iron curves dividing Cosette’s home from the street.

Eponine always comes on days like this, when Cosette’s papa is off running errands and she takes refuge in her garden for want of company. Eponine, who always stays for but an hour or so before running off, keeps her dark eyes on Cosette, the corners of her lips twitching every few seconds as Cosette fidgets.

Eponine, her former tormentor at the orphanage they once both inhabited, now her strange companion for all her loneliest hours. She could be mistaken for a boy, with her cropped, black hair bunched under a fedora. Yet the curves peeking out beneath layers of second-hand, ill-fitting clothes and her exposed cleavage suggest otherwise. Cosette, her cheeks flushing the color of the roses by her feet and her breath coming as fickle as the slight breeze ruffling through the garden, imagines her as the remarkable heroine of some Gaimanesque fantasy, distorting people’s perceptions in order to conceal her own mythological identity. Cosette is especially keen on dreaming of Eponine as an angel wandering the earth with no purpose other than her own amusement. The flash of gold that always catches Eponine’s attention in these visions is not her, Cosette sternly reminds herself as her blush deepens.

Sometimes, they talk. Cosette tells her of her morning walks with her papa and the funny sorts of people she observes at church. Eponine speaks to her of her adventures in the streets, provoking handsome students into arguments before disappearing with a token of theirs without a second thought. (Today, Eponine has a paintbrush and a fan in the hand resting below the gate.) She usually leaves out the details, ending her account with a quick grin before disappearing once more into the streets. Cosette always finds herself clutching tightly at the gate, watching the other girl’s retreating form until it is nothing more than shadows, almost as if she were a pining lover from one of her stories.

Today, they both are content to remain in silence as Cosette resumes her walking, Eponine still watching her without moving from her place. Cosette leans down to fix an oddly angled stem, pauses to whisper against wilted petals. Eponine’s right hand tightens its grip upon the iron gate as Cosette begins to stand.

“Would you like to come in?”

The words leave Cosette before she can fully grasp their meaning and her own intentions. She chews on her bottom lip, slightly rocking on her feet as her face burns and she hopes against all odds that her papa will wind up running late with his errands. She doesn’t know why the thought stumbled out of her just as she conceived it; just that today makes it a full year in which Eponine has paid her these visits. And not once has she ever invited her inside, a notion that bothers her the more she dwells on it.

“Gladly, if you’ll have me.”

Cosette does not know what sort of response she expected, but Eponine’s affirmation catches her off guard regardless. Cosette finds her hands trembling slightly at the promise, as assured as a cat’s purr, rippling underneath the other girl’s words. She nods as she makes her way over to the gate, taking care not to walk on any stay flowers in her path.

The gate is cool against the heat of her palm as she twists the various locks. Her papa surely would disapprove of her letting a stranger into their abode like this. Cosette finds that such a bold defiance of her papa’s rules only excites her the more as she unlatches the final lock and stands aside to allow Eponine pass.

Eponine startles her by immediately grabbing Cosette by her hands and pulling her forward. Cosette almost falls right into her arms.

Eponine’s hands are sharp like thorns; Cosette’s breath hitches as they scratch against her own, pale skin. Yet even as her hands startle Cosette with their roughness, Eponine’s lips unfurl like petals in the sunlight. She finds she cannot turn away, drawn in by their faint perfume of cologne and alcohol, and the myriad of stories they contain. Eponine’s gaze falls to her own lips, which part of their own accord. Cosette hesitates but for a moment before throwing herself into the softest parts of Eponine.

Eponine brings her hands to tangle in Cosette’s hair. Cosette curls her toes, digs them like roots into the ground. For in Eponine’s embrace, she feels herself grow.


End file.
